The 2012 Tour of Utah kicked off with stage one of Tuesday. The 131 mile road race featured five climbs and an exciting finish that would give fans and commentators an unexpected winner. After an exciting final 10 miles, a 30-40 man group made up the field sprint. UnitedHealthcare's Rory Sutherland sprinted from a long distance to take the first stage win and the yellow jersey of this year's Tour of Utah. Damiano Caruso of Italian Liquigas-Cannondale team sprinted to second while BMC Racing's American climber, Brent Bookwalter, held on for third.
An early breakaway featuring Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell Pro Cycling), Caleb Fairly (SpiderTech-C10), David Williams (Competitive Cyclist) and Eduard Beltran Suarez (EPM-UNE). The four were later joined by William Clarke (Champion-System), making a group of four. The peloton behind allowed the gap to continuously rise throughout the stage, beofre beginning the chase when the gap reach nearly twelve minutes.
35 miles from the finish line, Jesse Anthony of the Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies squad attacked the peloton and eventually crossed the four and 1/2 minutes gap at the time up to the peloton. However, before long after Anthony joining the breakaway, the cars and motorcycles were pulled out of the gap, showing that the gap between the peloton and breakaway was approximately 30 seconds. Before long the breakaway was sucked back into the peloton after being out front for over 100 miles and the attacks from the peloton began.
Timmy Duggan (Liquigas-Cannondale), Lucas Euser (Spidertech-C10), Peter Stetina (Garmin-Sharp), Ian Boswell (Bontrager-Livestrong) among others were successful in getting off the front of the peloton, however, yet again the peloton hunted the lead group down and their shot breakaway opportunity faded.
As the raced pressed on in the final miles, more and more riders attacked the peloton in attempts to go for solo victory. All riders who attacked were reeled back into the peloton just before the final turn that led the riders onto the final straight where Rory Sutherland would sprint to victory.
Stage 1 Results to come when available